Teaching purpose-driven entrepreneurs learn to be the Directors of Marketing for their businesses

Raising Your Prices

It can be scary, right? On one hand, you want to be compensated more for your time. On the other, you don’t want to ward off potential clients.

Raising your prices is a must, though. On a practical side, you have to make up for cost of living increases, such as higher gas prices and property taxes. On the growth side, you have probably been undercharging this whole time, which is killing your mindset.

Entrepreneurs raise their prices all the time – and you can too!

To help you, please check out this marketing strategy video where I talk about mindset issues around price increases, as well as some tactical advice for when to raise your prices.

VIDEO:

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TRANSCRIPT:

Hi, everyone. This is Jill Celeste from the Celestial Marketing Academy and jillceleste.com where I teach purpose driven entrepreneurs all they need to know about marketing so they can become the directors of marketing for their businesses.

Let’s talk about raising your prices in this week’s marketing strategy video. You may be wondering: is it time to raise my prices and how do I do it? It’s a little bit of a scary time because you want to make sure you’re compensated for your gifts and for what you do in the world but you don’t want to repel people. You’re scared. It’s this interesting fine balance. I’m going to share with you some ideas and some tips in this video to help you be confident in making the right pricing decisions for your business.

The first thing I want to tackle is the mindset behind raising your prices and I want to refer to this fabulous book. If you haven’t read it, go get it. It’s called You Are a Badass by Jen Sincero, and I’m going to quote from her.

Look, you could tell I love this book because I have Post-it Notes in places. I’m going to go to page 215 where she talks about the fourth rule of wealth consciousness and it’s about raising your frequency.

The first thing she says is this, “Nothing has any value other than the value we put on it.” Then she continues and says this, “If we believe we’re worth $1,000 an hour, that’s the frequency we’ll put out and that’s the kind of client or employment opportunities we’ll attract. The keyword is believe. And, you can’t be shitting bricks and charging more than you believe you’re worth and expect to receive it, and you can’t charge less than what you believe you’re worth and expect to flourish because you will be pissed off.” So true. I wish had wrote these words myself.

The key is you have to believe you’re worth. If you believe you’re worth $250 an hour, then that’s what you charge and that’s what you’ll attract. But, if you don’t believe it, you won’t attract the people who will pay it and then you’ll be out of alignment completely. The first thing I need you to do before you raise your prices is to believe your value. Have the self-worth. It helps to read books like this. There’s other books out there for you. Do what you need to do. Talk to a mentor. Get that belief system going because that is the first step to raising your prices.

Now, let’s switch to more tactical things, tactical ways to raise your prices. The first decision you need to make is who’s going to be affected by your price change? I think the most obvious answer is of course your new clients would be affected. Anyone coming into your coaching practice for example or anybody that you’re designing something for would be the beneficiary or the recipient, I should say, of your new prices. Depending on your business though, you may need to increase your prices for existing clients. For example, if you’re a nail technician, if you clean houses, if you own a lawn care company where people have long relationships with you, it may be beneficial and needed for you to raise your prices. If that’s the case, I would give as much notice as possible to those folks to let them know that you’re raising your prices and, if it makes sense, to offer why.

Often we raise our prices because the products that we use and our services, they have increased. The cost of gas has gotten higher. The cost of supplies that you need to run your practice might go higher. Also think about your self-worth in that equation, too. Decide who is going to be the person paying the higher prices and then plan your strategy accordingly.

Another trick I want to share with you is self re-raise your price. I was thought this by someone who mentored with me and I love this. How I know it’s time to raise my prices is after I sell three of those items. If I sell my top coaching package to three people, then I know it’s okay. I give myself permission to go ahead and raise that price. Then if I sell three more, then I go ahead and raise that price. It might be incremental. It could be a hundred bucks. It could be 200 bucks. It doesn’t have to be a vast, large increase but just nudging my way up, up and up and up after selling three until I reach price resistance. When price resistance happens, that means you’ve reached the point where you can’t sell anymore but that rarely happens in our marketplace. Sell three, raise your price, sell three, raise your price. If that feels good to you, then use that as well.

In conclusion, I want you to first address your mindset, address the fact that you are worth every penny that you charge and you have to believe it because if you don’t believe it, you’ll never sell anything at your increased price. The second thing I want you to consider is who is going to be affected by your price increases and to communicate those accordingly and, finally, find that magic rhythm on how many things you sell before you raise your price and that’ll make you more confident in raising your prices and doing everything an incremental step so that you can reach the profit that you would like to have.

I hope these tips are helpful for you. And, if you need any additional marketing help, come on over to my website at jillceleste.com where you can check out my blog for lots of different free information. You can check out more information about the Celestial Marketing Academy and also my coaching packages. All of my prices are listed there. Until next time, here’s to your marketing success. I wish you lots of love. Bye.

ABOUT JILL

Jill Celeste, MA is a bestselling author, marketing teacher and founder of the Celestial Marketing Academy. Jill teaches purpose-driven entrepreneurs everything they need to know about marketing so they can become the Directors of Marketing for their businesses.

Jill is the author of the Amazon Top 25 Bestselling Marketing Book, That First Client, as well as the co-author of the bestseller, Cultivating Joy, and international bestseller, Gratitude and Grace.

Jill graduated with a B.A. in English from Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia. She obtained her master’s degree in history from the State University of Georgia in Carrollton. Prior to becoming a marketing coach, Jill worked for 14 years in the private sector, and has experience in marketing and public relations in healthcare, IT and small business.

Jill lives near Tampa, Florida, with her husband, two sons, two guinea pigs and a basset hound named Emma.

I have been thinking about this topic lately, my prices do need an update and I intend to raise them this year but in creating new programs I also want to make them accessible to people at different income levels and not sure if to do a sliding scale fee or create a limited number of scholarship fees or something else… I think I will try different things this years and see what works. So far I have been attracting clients who have a lot of integrity so a sliding scale might work.

Great blog Jill and strategies for changing your mindset and raising your prices. I so appreciate the line, “The key is you have to believe you’re worth.” Embracing our worth and value is critical in our businesses and personal lives and raising our prices may be a practical way to heal and grow challenges in this area. Thank you for sharing your insight and wisdom!

I have a new style winter hat that is hugely popular. And yup, I raised my price on it. My marketing department (my adult daughters) told me not to discount or change the price point. They were right. No one said boo has they placed orders yesterday

Great timing Jill! I have raised all of my prices this year in a small amount. I figured I am offering more as I learn and grow. I resonated with a small increase so I can choose to do it again in 6 months to a year.

I did just raise my prices! I believe I’m worh it, now I need to see if my customers agree! I usually review my prices every quarter and take into consideration what the competition is up to and how busy I am. If the phone isn’t ringing, maybe too high, if I can’t keep up, maybe to low!! thank you for an insightful and timely post!